An audio guide to San Francisco

City tours for locals with the Detour app

How many times have you secretly wished for visitors just so you’d have a legit excuse to board the tourist ferry to Alcatraz without inviting ridicule by local friends?

Now Detour, an app built by former Groupon CEO Andrew Mason, lets you rediscover our city in a cool new way with hour-long iPhone audio tours that even the most jaded locals will enjoy. Narrated by SF journalists and radio producers, these self-guided walks give you stories you won't find in guidebooks.

New Detours launch every month, and you can sync the audio with your friends so you can stroll together. Here are our three favorites:

The Fisherman’s Fisherman’s Wharf A lifelong commercial fishmerman takes you inside a working wharf, you’ll meet the only woman-owned crab company in the city and you’ll get to play antique arcade games at Musée Mécanique.

Beyond the Painted Ladies Reporter Liz Gannes will take you to Western Addition, where the Grateful Dead threw acid parties, and she’ll introduce you to a survivor of the gruesome Jonestown massacre.

Cool Gray City Best-selling author Gary Kamiya will show you where Chinese immigrants played cards, and he’ll reveal where the city’s very first house was built.